Apple has released its fifth beta for iOS 6.1 to registered developers. Since the fourth beta was set to expire Monday, we were expecting Apple to seed a new release yesterday or Monday. Instead, the company has uncharacteristically seeded the new software on a Saturday. iOS 6.1 beta 4 was seeded on December 17th, 2012.

Everyone has been expecting the final iOS 6.1 GM build to arrive any day now, but Apple is still obviously pushing out betas. When the GM version does come out for devs, then a public release is not far behind.

A beta version of iOS has never gone past 7 beta revisions in years, and each version is usually about a month apart. That would put 6.1 on track for hitting beta 7 sometime around March, which happens to be around the time that Apple usually holds a press event.

… so does that mean I may nee to wait until at least March if it goes to Dev 7 before I can get WIFI back on our 4s phones? Since the update, no matter how many refreshes we do, we cannot stay connected to WIFI, truly exhausting :(

Shane Bryson

“A beta version of iOS has never gone past 7 beta revisions in years…” So which is it? A beta has never gone past 7 betas, or hasn’t in years? Please, learn to write.

Robert X

Rumor is that this will morph into the GM version. You don’t need a UUID to activate unlike previous betas.

Robert X

“A beta version of iOS has never gone past 7 beta revisions in years…” So which is it? A beta has never gone past 7 betas, or hasn’t in years? Please, learn to write.

I understood what they were saying.

rgeraldporter

Unfortunately Apple just screwed a whole bunch of developers over with this. They released Beta 5 alright, and expired Beta 4… all over the weekend, with no notification about the imminent expiry, and not even an email to let them know that beta 5 was out and that it’s not OTA and they’re phones will be bricked if they don’t upgrade before Sunday night. Suffice to say there are a lot of devs out there with bricked phones they can’t back up and restore, that better hope they had backed up recently or they’ll have lost all their data.

About the author

Alex Heath is a senior writer at Cult of Mac and co-host of the CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like "ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation." If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Twitter always works too.

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